What the “Friends of Hamas” Episode Means

Jonathan Bernstein sees the “Friends of Hamas” nonsense and how quickly it spread through conservative circles as symptoms of a broader problem with conservative media outlets:

The question is what comes next. Does the reporter get punished for botching a story, or rewarded for generating partisan talking points? Does the publication redouble its efforts to enforce standards, or pride itself on the buzz? Do pundits and politicians learn to be highly skeptical of the news source and, if it doesn’t clean itself up, eventually shun it — or do they continue to cite it as if it’s totally legitimate?

The answers to date suggest that the GOP is perfectly happy to welcome into the tent an organization that is happy to fabricate “news” that supports conservative story lines.

This episode is reminiscent of the near-certainty at many conservative media outlets that Romney was likely to win in the closing weeks of the election last year. Many of the people at these outlets started with the false assumption that Obama should be the underdog because of profound misreading of how the voting public would react to the state of the economy, and they proceeded to discount or explain away all evidence that told them something that contradicted this core wrong assumption. This led them to put their trust in truly outlandish predictions that proved to be wildly wrong. Similarly, conservative media outlets have been endlessly repeating various lies about Hagel (e.g., that he is “anti-Israel” or “hostile” to Israel, that his views are “fringe” and “not mainstream,” etc.) and face little or no resistance from other conservatives (and meanwhile criticism from outside the bubble is simply ignored). That makes many of them willing to believe ever more outrageous and nonsensical stories about Hagel. Hence the ease with which the total fabrication of the “Friends of Hamas” was accepted and repeated as if it were true or even possible.

It’s impossible to understand the speed with which the “Friends of Hamas” fiction spread online without appreciating just how dishonest the underlying movement conservative anti-Hagel argument is. Anyone who knows Hagel’s real record and doesn’t fall for hard-liners’ misrepresentation of it would have recognized this “story” as garbage the moment he heard about it. Even if such a group existed, it’s lunatic to think that Hagel would have been consorting with it. One has to be willing to believe all manner of nonsense and smears before the “Friends of Hamas” lie seems remotely plausible. Unrelenting hostility to evidence will always come back to haunt you sooner or later.

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32 Responses to What the “Friends of Hamas” Episode Means

The proliferation of media outlets, breaking up the stranglehold of the MSM on the public discourse, has been a largely positive development, but the negative of it is that people across the political spectrum congregate in their echo chambers. This Hagel business is symbolic of that: as Daniel writes, movement cons believe all manner of absurd slander about Hagel because they inhabit media corners where everyone agrees with the narrow ideological viewpoint that produced the slander, so it just seems normal, self-evident, and uncontroversial. The left does this too (“Bush=Hitler”).

What it means is just what we’ve known for a long time now – if you’re paying so much as a single dollar to a self-described “conservative” news site, you’d best be paying for a stand-up comedy routine, because that’s all you’re getting. This goes double for anyone who’s ever had the slightest connection with Breitbart – they’re grifters, every one, and they’re lazy, incompetent, and unprofessional even at that.

@Noah172 – perfect example of the bubble… “the left does it too” is complete nonsense, and to see false equivalencies is a form of self-justification without any real basis.

I am sure that somewhere on the interwebs you can find plenty of “bush = hitler”, but that is really missing the point here. This is not the ranting of some minor figure, but a falsity embraced and promulgated by what passes for the mainstream of the right-wing media

If you in any way contradict the right-Zionist line, you are either an anti-semite or a self-hating Jew. I read a commenter who called Chuck Schumer, of all people, a “kapo.” Hitler is alive and living, not in Argentina, but in the offices of “Commentary.”

Aggressiveness and incivility in debate seem to be rife in those circles.

Do you remember the Ashcroft confirmation brouhaha in 2001? Whatever one thinks of his politics — I would have my own criticisms — the guy was well qualified for the post of AG. The mainstream left went into a fit of hysteria similar to the neocons today with Hagel. In the end, 42 of 50 Democratic Senators voted against Ashcroft’s confirmation. I’ll go on a limb and predict that a lower proportion of the current 45 Republican Senators will vote against Hagel.

Scottinnj wrote:

Why can’t Roger Ailes, Rush Limbaugh be called by their true name – grifters. US politics would be better if we could recall the Bush 41 administration.

I think that Roger Ailes can recall the Bush 41 administration just fine: he was one of the chief advisors to the Bush 1988 campaign.

And let’s not be too wistful for that administration either. Sure, the elder Bush’s Mesopotamian war was far less costly and more successful than the son’s, but the former amassed hundreds of thousands of troops in Saudi Arabia without Congressional authorization, and considered the Congressional authorization to commence hostilities (in January 1991, a rather close vote in the Senate, BTW) unnecessary — pretty aggressive. The elder Bush, like the son, also favored amnesty for illegal aliens, unfettered free trade (he negotiated NAFTA), and affirmative action. The elder, unlike the son, appointed a very liberal, pro-abortion justice to the Supreme Court (whose views on abortion were known privately to the administration, if not widely among the general public). The elder, though, was far more fiscally prudent than his profligate, innumerate son, and deserves credit for helping the budget come eventually into balance in the late 90s (which his successor still acknowledges).

False equivalence is often criticized these days, and I myself believe that the Republican party behaves far worse than the Democratic party, at least in recent memory; however this is one place where both the movement Rs and the movement Ds are equally badly behaved. Nothing moves as fast as scandalous news about your current opponent (whomever they are); see all the recent studies about peoples’ willingness to believe false stories about their political opponents (for example, http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/realtimecorr.htm).

In ye olden days, prior to the internet, news sources had the luxury of at least several hours to vet a story before running it. This does not mean that all stories were accurate or that misinformation was never deliberately depicted as fact, but most journalists realized their reputation was on the line and fact-checked their reporting accordingly.

Nowadays, with the proliferation of hundreds of thousands of blogs and news sources, it becomes incredibly easy for dubious information to proliferate wildly in a 24-hour period. Perhaps “conservativesoccermom” blogs on wordpress or one of those “examiner” sites about some rumor, misinterpretation, or innuendo about “The REAL Benghazi Scandal.” Then “minneapolisgunnut” picks it up and writes his own post. The Washington Free Beacon sums it up in a 2-paragraph story and cites conservativesoccermom and minneapolisgunnut. The Drudge Report picks up the Beacon story. A Breitbart reporter notices the story on Drudge, and expands it to two pages complete with “quotes” from “sources.” Politico writes a blurb about the “controversy.” And next thing you know it’s being stated as fact on the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

Liberals do this too, of course, and it often happens in other areas of journalism (cf, the “bloody cricket bat” rumor in the recent Oscar Pistorius case). Most obviously, it occurs in financial journalism, in which having the scoop first, if even by minutes or even seconds, is crucial, and rumors themselves are newsworthy. Hence, you get things like the the 2008 United Airlines bankruptcy scare because somebody forgot to check the date line on an article.

Getting paid for telling people only what they want to hear – or only what someone wants them to hear – has a long and dishonorable history. Unfortunately, truth be damned, it seems you can’t go broke underestimating the intelligence of the consumer, but it ought not to be characterized as journalism.

That said, MSNBC are complete shills for the administration, as Glenn Greenwald has pointed out today.

“perfect example of the bubble… “the left does it too” is complete nonsense, and to see false equivalencies is a form of self-justification without any real basis.”

You’re a cliche leftist, so that reaction is perfectly in character for you. It’s getting rather boring.

Daniel is of course correct about the anti-Hagel movement. Most of these same people predicted that Romney would win the Electoral College in a landslide, even going to far as to carry Minnesota, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Of course none of them were called out when it turned out out totally and completely wrong, but why should facts get in the way of punditry?

“Do you remember the Ashcroft confirmation brouhaha in 2001? Whatever one thinks of his politics — I would have my own criticisms — the guy was well qualified for the post of AG. The mainstream left went into a fit of hysteria similar to the neocons today with Hagel.”

They may have opposed Ashcroft, but I don’t recall any “Friends of Hamas” nonsense from the left. As in, they had reasons for opposing Ashcroft (even if you disagree with those reasons), while the GOP doesn’t even have a coherent argument against Hagel.

Honestly, for a moment I had a thought that all of the anti-Hagel talk was just a fringe group not affiliated with anyone worthwhile. Then I realized I’ve succeeded in shutting out just about every piece of political news except a few specific blogs, TAC, the occasional trip to NPR (far, far away from the comments board or editorials) just for the raw “what happened”. I’m in my own echo chamber fairy land where people disagree with spirited debates and no insults or accusations of ‘worse than terrorists’.

I’m not sure I want to leave this bubble. As such, I thank those who do, like Daniel in this article, for letting me know what’s going on in the ‘dark, cold outside’.

As for the article itself, I’m not surprised. This has become the norm since 9/11. It’s like there’s a large push to evoke McCarthy 2.0. I’m just glad is stopped taking root before it became ugly.

Unrelenting hostility to evidence will always come back to haunt you sooner or later.

In some regards, maybe. But as Bernstein points out, no one expects any negative consequences for this reporter, or outlet, or the infotainment sources like the National Review that ran with it. Sure, people like Daniel Larison and the people who read him get a chuckle out of it. But how does that affect the broader discourse?

Just say a bunch of mean things, maybe throw in a reference to death panels and socialism, and you can fire up the opposition & drive down the target’s popularity.

@IanH – you’re missing the point, Southern Partisan exists. Friends of Hamas doesn’t. If they accused the guy of speaking in front of Oppressors Unlimited or something else as fantasy based you’re point for equivalence would hold.

In October 1998 Ashcroft gave an interview to the Southern Partisan magazine in which he lashed out at “revisionists” who make malicious attacks on America’s founders, such as charging that George Washington was a racist. (The Q & A’s introduction praises Ashcroft as a “jealous defender of national sovereignty against the New World Order.”) “Your magazine helps set the record straight,” said Ashcroft. “You’ve got a heritage of doing that, of defending Southern patriots like [Robert E.] Lee, [Stonewall] Jackson and [Jefferson] Davis. Traditionalists must do more. I’ve got to do more. We’ve all got to stand up and speak in this respect or else we’ll be taught that these people were giving their lives, subscribing their sacred fortunes and their honor to some perverted agenda.”

Note that Ashcroft was interviewed by a clearly nonfictitious magazine, representing a nonfictitious organization. Given the nature of the organization, some elements of US society could legitimately wonder if the prospective Attorney General was going to enforce some of the laws that are in place to protect their rights.

Hilariously, Breitbart doubled down: “The mainstream media have ignored the fact that at least one prominent supporter of Hamas has donated money to an organization associated with former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE)—namely, the Atlantic Council, which receives support from the Hariri family of Lebanon, whose most prominent member, former Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri, publicly backs Hamas.”

Given the nature of the organization, some elements of US society could legitimately wonder if the prospective Attorney General was going to enforce some of the laws that are in place to protect their rights.

Ashcroft had a long record upon his nomination for AG in 2001: Auditor and AG of Missouri, Governor, Senator. If his opponents had wanted to point to things in his actual public career as evidence that he would not defend the constitutional rights of all citizens regardless of race, they could have (and public acts are fair game, let me be clear). Seizing on an ambiguous guilt-by-association argument based on a magazine subscription and a speech before an organization about historical interpretation (not really current policy matters, that is, certainly not matters relevant to an AG’s duties) was a desperate and unworthy tactic born of spite from the disputed outcome of the 2000 election.

Now the neocon Republicans are returning the favor with a spiteful attack on Hagel because they believe in their fevered minds that they deserved to win the last election.

It’s true, the left doesn’t do this. For instance, we know that Susan Rice was absolutely correct about the Benghazi incident being motivated by some silly Islam video. When the media parroted this, and all the little lefties believed it and argued angrily against any insinuation that there was anything more to it, they were totally being completely honest, because that’s just what lefties do. Or maybe no one ever actually said that, I’m not sure anymore.